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Person of Interest Ep. 3.18: “Allegiance” sadly reliant on procedural format

Person of Interest falls into many of the same traps that shows of its ilk often do. Their week-to-week mysteries, full of twists and turns that are meant to surprise and trick viewers before resolving at each episode’s end, inevitably become a weakness, taking away from the series’ many other elements, those that they do so very well. The difference between Person of Interest and other procedurals is that this show is going for who-gonna-do-it instead of the tired whodunit. Perhaps the formula would be more successful if the mystery were whether the weekly number is going to kill someone or be killed, but more often than not, it’s straightforward, with little more for our leads to determine than who the wants to kill the number.

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Person of Interest, Ep. 3.15, “Last Call” suffers from a melodramatic villain

Some episodes can have all of the elements that should make a perfectly effective hour of television, and would for most TV shows, but for whatever completely subjective reason, they don’t seem to work nearly as much as they should. In the case of “Last Call”, the pieces should theoretically work and yet, perhaps due to how they come together throughout the episode, the episode just doesn’t work, plain and simple.

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Person of Interest Ep. 3.14: “Provenance” gets its heist on

There are times in life when you’re forced to do something not because you want to, but because you have no choice but to do it. Who among us hasn’t taken a crappy job for the sole reason that you won’t rent otherwise? In a perfect world we do the work we want and love with a big salary attached and life is good. The real world is far more cruel that, however, and sometimes you just suffer through that bad job. Hopefully it’s never to the point of this week’s number, Kelli Lin (Elaine Tan), who is extorted into stealing art by criminals that have her daughter.

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Person of Interest, Ep. 3.12, “Aletheia” explores the nature of The Machine

The first half of Person of Interest’s third season was a tremendous group of episodes: laughs were shared, losses were had, feels were felt (in case you’re wondering, all), but good times were had by all, except, perhaps, Taraji P. Henson, but let’s not go there. In any case, it’s been a great season and all indications say that will only continue from here.

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Person of Interest, Ep. 3.09, “The Crossing” keeps you guessing

“The Crossing”, the second installment in Person of Interest’s three-part arc, picks up directly where “Endgame” left off with Reese (Jim Caviezel) and Carter (Tarji P. Henson) transporting the head of nefarious organization HR, Alonzo Quinn (Clarke Peters), to the FBI headquarters in New York City. Making matters more difficult, HR has put a hit out on Reese to every criminal in the city.

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Person of Interest, Ep. 3.01, “Liberty” is a rocky, procedural premiere

A brief recap on the first two seasons: there exists a machine made my the government that monitors the activities of everyone in the country (and abroad) for the purpose of predicting and preventing terrorist attacks. As a byproduct, “The Machine” also tracks the more mundane activities, i.e. premeditated murders. “The Machine” gives out a person’s number who will either be murdered or will be murdering someone else. Using “The Machine” to prevent these murders, former CIA operative John Reese (Jim Caviziel) and Harold Finch (Lost’s Harold Finch), creator of “The Machine”, work to prevent these murders with the assistance of New York City Detectives Carter (Tarji P. Henson) and Fusco (Kevin Chapman).

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